


I'd Fight Away All of Your Fears

by footsieinthegarden



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Depressed Grantaire, Depression, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/footsieinthegarden/pseuds/footsieinthegarden
Summary: Enjolras and Grantaire are supposed to be working towards more independence as they recover from their ordeal. But sometimes Enjolras just wants to spend every minute together, recovery be damned. Grantaire just wants the bad memories to stay away.





	I'd Fight Away All of Your Fears

**Author's Note:**

> My draft title for this was Crabby Enjolras Sad Grantaire, but that didn't quite sound fancy enough for the Summary box, however accurate it may be. I promise they are less crabby and sad by the end.

“You’re sure you don’t want a turn?” Grantaire asked drowsily, his breath warm across Enjolras’s collarbone. 

Enjolras just hummed in response. “You should go get cleaned up before you fall back asleep.” 

“I am not going back to sleep,” his husband tried to protest, with his eyes still shut. “You just want me to leave so you can hog all the covers for yourself.” But with a sigh and some very extensive grumbling, Grantaire did eventually crawl out of bed and pad down the stairs. Enjolras took the opportunity to scoot over to his vacated spot and let himself enjoy.

“I knew it was a trick,” Grantaire said when he was only halfway back up the steps. 

“Your pillow smells nice,” Enjolras explained into said pillow.

“Now that is an especially dirty trick.” Grantaire rustled under the covers into Enjolras’s normal spot. “You’re lucky I don’t touch you with my cold feet.”

“R, you’re wearing like three pairs of socks.” He turned over to face his husband to tangle their legs together to prove his point and found Grantaire smelled nicely of soap and toothpaste. 

“That doesn’t mean my feet aren’t cold. I have to keep at least one secret weapon if you keep going around telling me my pillow smells nice.” 

Enjolras opened his eyes to find Grantaire had closed his and appeared to have settled back in. He cupped his husband’s face. “Grantaire, I love you.”

Grantaire smiled a little bit and mumbled, “Love you too,” before he drifted back off. Enjolras wasn’t exactly tired, but that didn’t bother him. Some days, maybe a lot of days if he were to be truly honest with himself, it was still surreal to just lie in bed and cuddle as long as he wanted; and since those days came less often now that they both had real responsibilities to tend to, he didn’t want to let any of these moments slip away. At some point, Grantaire woke up and touched his hand, where he’d been idly plucking at a thread on his husband’s sleeve. Grantaire rolled to look at him more easily and stroked his palm with his thumb. 

“It’s nothing.” Grantaire gave him a questioning look. “I just – this is really nice.”

“Enjolras, no one is saying this isn’t allowed.”

He focused very hard on not crushing Grantaire’s hand in his own. “I know. I just – no one pays any attention to how much time other people spend with their partners.” He restrained himself from saying, or whining, that it was unfair. 

Grantaire shifted until he could rub circles into Enjolras’s back. When he was a little calmer, Grantaire quietly suggested, “You can always switch therapists if you want.”

Enjolras bit his lip and then sighed. “No. No. You warned me this wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. I should be able to plan to go study at the library for a few hours without getting all…like this.” 

“Do you want me to come with? I can sit somewhere else. So you don’t have to have me glued to your hip, but I can still be there if you need me.” Grantaire continued to rub Enjolras’s back but looked away as he spoke. 

“Grantaire, you know how much your support means to me, right? But she’s right that it’s not fair of me to always make you accommodate my schedule and my feelings.” 

“I don’t mind,” Grantaire said, his hand now still and his voice very small. 

Enjolras tugged him in close and squeezed him. “I know you don’t, R, I know. I love you so much. Why don’t I just study at home today?”

“If you’re going to be irritated with yourself all day anyway, you might as well do it at the library.” Grantaire valiantly tried to smile at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

“If you’re going to feel down today, I might as well stay here with you.” 

Grantaire rolled away. “I’ll go see what kind of leftovers we have that are suitable for brunch.” 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras caught his hand just in time, “we don’t have to go out tonight if you don’t want to.”

“And what? Let you sulk at home when you could show off how much you like cuddling with me?” This time Grantaire’s smile was a little more genuine. Enjolras kissed his fingers, which always made Grantaire blush and relax, at least a little. 

“I’m always happy to show you off.” Grantaire turned even redder and scampered away before Enjolras could say anything else. He followed his husband downstairs more slowly and puttered around in the bathroom until he heard Grantaire setting plates out on the table. They sat with their knees touching, and he let Grantaire explain just why reheated Chinese could be rightly considered a brunch item. All too soon it was time for him to go to the library. Where Grantaire was not going to be. On purpose. 

“I’m just a call away if you need me,” his husband reminded him with a kiss. “Just make sure you FaceTime me if you’re going to get thrown out for talking. I don’t want to miss that.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes and kissed Grantaire again, because no one could actually tell him how often he was allowed to do that, except Grantaire himself. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind if I get bored.” He squeezed Grantaire’s hands. “I’ll see you at Ferre and Courf’s later?” 

“I’ll be there when you get there,” Grantaire agreed, squeezing his hands back. 

His studying was very unproductive. He did manage to find a table on a quiet floor, near a stairwell in case he needed to call Grantaire after all, with a gigantic potted plant only Jehan could love behind him and a clear line of sight all around him. In three hours there he accomplished what he could’ve done in one at home, because, contrary to Courf’s teasing, Grantaire was more than capable of leaving him undisturbed when he needed to work, but his husband had been right; there was some satisfaction in doing what he had promised their therapist, and he found much of the material was coming back to him as the end of the program approached. 

He treated himself to a tea on his way out of the building, because he surely deserved some sort of reward, but he found himself mostly enjoying the way his fingernail indented the lid as he rode the subway. It was that or go back to jiggling his leg until his seatmate glared at him again. He knew this was ridiculous: he could text Grantaire right now, or even Combeferre or Courfeyrac to confirm his husband was at their apartment, just like he had promised. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Grantaire to have kept his word, no doubt with plenty of time to spare, but the thought that he might knock on the door and not find him waiting on the other side, somehow, made his stomach hurt. He tried to distract himself by thinking of ways to be affectionate with Grantaire that would be obvious but not too obnoxious, because this morning made it clear his husband still had his own issues, even if he tried to push them aside for Enjolras.

Still, there was nothing like the relief of Grantaire opening the door when he knocked and hugging him for a long, long time. He vaguely heard Courfeyrac talking to someone in the kitchen, and everyone else left them alone. He tried to look Grantaire in the eyes after he kissed him and received a lackluster response, but his husband turned away. Enjolras set his backpack down and took his shoes off and then followed him to the sofa, where Grantaire was sitting to the side of Jehan and Bahorel. He grabbed the blanket folded on the arm and tucked it around their laps; Grantaire shifted enough to let him complete the task but otherwise didn’t acknowledge it. 

“R, do you still want to hold my yarn for me?” Jehan asked gently, as Courfeyrac came around with popcorn for everyone. Enjolras put his hand out so Grantaire could see it, but his husband picked up the yarn ball instead. Enjolras settled for wrapping his arm around Grantaire’s shoulders instead. He eventually relaxed several scenes into their movie but didn’t look at Enjolras or touch the popcorn. 

“There’s other snacks in the kitchen” Jehan said just as gently after awhile, looking meaningfully at Grantaire. “I can go with if you want.”

Grantaire studied his lap for a little longer and then shook his head. He abruptly stood up and led Enjolras away by the hand, wrapping their lap blanket around himself as he did so. He stopped in the far corner, out of sight of their friends, all of who had pointedly noticed not to notice anything, and then just stared at the ground. Enjolras knew these mood swings were normal, not just because he had been counseled to expect them, but because he felt them in himself, but that didn’t stop him from wishing he could just wave away whatever was troubling Grantaire and bring back his happier, teasing self from that morning. “Did something happen?” he prompted when Grantaire still said nothing. 

“It’s stupid,” Grantaire whispered at the floor, clutching the blanket more tightly around himself. A wave of panic overtook Enjolras at that – had someone touched his husband? He made himself breathe. Jehan was giving Grantaire space and courage to talk about whatever this was – they would be acting completely differently if something truly terrible had happened.

“Grantaire, if something is making you this sad, it’s not stupid.” Grantaire didn’t move for a long time and then raised his hands to his face, slowly sank to the floor, and started to silently shake. Enjolras followed and rocked him in his arms. When Grantaire stilled, he asked, “Do you want to go home?” 

“No. I already made a big enough scene as it is.” 

“You didn’t make a scene at all. I’ll say it was me that got upset if anyone asks.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s obvious which one of us was crying.” Grantaire sniffled and wiped roughly at his eyes. “Sorry I ruined tonight for you.”

“Shh. You didn’t ruin anything. The only thing I want is to see you happy.”

Grantaire sniffled again. “That’s going to be a little hard for me, if you haven’t noticed.”

Enjolras squeezed him. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

His husband looked up at him, quickly, and then started to fidget. “You have to promise not to say anything.”

Enjolras frowned. “Someone upset you. I don’t want to promise that without knowing what happened.”

“It’s so, so stupid though.”

“Grantaire, I’ve told you it’s not stupid. But – I promise I won’t do something you don’t want me to.” 

“I – this is going to sound so fucking ridiculous.” Grantaire stopped and Enjolras brushed his cheek and felt his husband stop chewing at it. “Courfeyrac sat on Combeferre’s lap.”  
“Did that – trigger you?”

“No,” Grantaire suddenly snapped. “I told you it was stupid. It was for like two seconds and then Combeferre moved him off. If I hadn’t happened to be looking at them, none of this would have ever happened. But I did see, and then I started thinking about how I’ll never be able to sit in your lap, even though just this morning I was fine to, you know, and then, I don’t know, it just reminded me how inadequate I can be and-” Enjolras quieted him with a kiss to the forehead. 

“I know this is about a lot more than just the lap-sitting, Grantaire, but I can tell Courfeyrac not to do it again around you.”

Grantaire shook his head violently. “No. Please don’t. It’d be too – Combeferre already knows. I’m sure he’ll tell him. And I don’t want Courfeyrac to feel bad. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Alright, I won’t say anything. I just don’t want this to happen to you again, if there’s something I can do to help it.” He kissed Grantaire’s head again. “What can I do?”

It turned out what he could do was slip out of the apartment as the movie was ending, leaving Jehan to make their goodbyes for them, and walk hand-in-hand with him to the latest restaurant Grantaire wanted to revisit, a list so endless Enjolras had to wonder how Grantaire had ever visited them all in the first place. Once there, he ordered exactly what Grantaire recommended to him and was rewarded by his husband gently bumping their knees together under the table. At the end of the meal, their server brought them a dessert to share, and he didn’t know if it was because someone had remembered Grantaire from before or recognized them now, and he found he didn’t really care when his husband smiled at him like that. He stopped caring altogether when Grantaire snuck a kiss more than once on the way home. 

They fell on the couch after each putting on some combination of their own and the other’s pajamas and picked out their own movie to watch. Enjolras sighed in contentment as Grantaire snuggled against him. His phone buzzed with a message from Combeferre saying he was glad they had come and hoped they had had a nice evening together afterwards. Enjolras relaxed a little reading that: in the end, no one had stopped from spending exactly as much time with Grantaire as he wanted. “Feeling better?” he asked his husband quietly as the credits started to roll.

“Mmm, I will in the morning, I think. But all this – it helped.”

“What? You’re trying to say you won’t feel completely better until you can attack me with your cold feet?” Enjolras teased, keeping his tone as light as possible. 

“I don’t have to wait for the morning for that.” Grantaire laughed as he slipped his suddenly bare feet against Enjolras’s legs and made him shriek in surprise. 

“That’s unfair,” Enjolras protested when he had recovered. “I didn’t even say anything about you smelling nice this time.”

Grantaire smirked and then his expression softened. “No, I suppose this time it wasn’t anything you said,” he agreed and then kissed Enjolras long and gentle.


End file.
